Patients with advanced stage diffuse aggressive lymphoma who do not achieve a complete response or relapse from a complete response have had a uniformly fatal outcome. This study was designed to improve upon that outcome by using high dose chemotherapy, total body irradiation, and autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT). All patients with advanced stage diffuse aggressive lymphomas who were treatment failures from one of several of our protocols were eligible for this study. Patients wore treated with combination chemotherapy to a complete response or to a 90% partial response, bone marrow was harvested and patients then received ablative chemotherapy consisting of high-dose cytoxan followed by total body irradiation. Bone marrow treated with anti-B1 and complement was reinfused and patients wore followed closely through neutropenia until marrow engraftment. A total of 23 patients have undergone transplantation with 21 achieving a complete response. Two patients were found to have residual lymphoma immediately following transplant. One of these patients was converted to a complete response with surgery and additional radiation and remains in complete response at greater than five years. There have been 10 relapses. A total of 14 patients have died; eight had no evidence of lymphoma although six were treatment-related deaths. Overall, of the 23 patients, seven patients are alive and continue in complete remission. This study demonstrates a significant improvement in survival in this group of patients; however there is a clear need to reduce treatment induced toxicities to further improve survival.